Forecasting the Future: What Does it Hold?

     As someone who grew up in the age of rapid expansion of media and communication I have been seeing the future unfold first hand. From the days of dial-up internet to modern times of having essentially a computer in your pocket at all times. Internet becoming regularized in households was a game changer and with cellphones being almost an essential to everyday life it's taken things a step further. As a child my hopes for the future were very high. All the old media promised us flying car and clean living by now but the reality is still rather impressive when we think of the place we started from. Back before internet the postal service or a telephone were the two main options. The postal service is often slow and unreliable even today and landlines were extremely limited.

      While I didn't get a flying car what I did get was an all in one device that allows me to connect with people anywhere in the world at any given time. The cellphone being called the pinnacle of communication technology may sound silly to some but when we think about how many deaths have been avoided because we had a means of instant mobile communication it puts things into perspective. Smart phones never cease to amaze me, they can do everything from make international calls to being miniature design platforms. Some phones are even marketed to be tools for jobs that require an artistic touch. Not only could you call your boss to get more information on your current project you could also mock up a quick design with the stylus of your new Galaxy Note with ease. If you're of the mind to take photographs there are cellphones with professional grade cameras built into them, some even have additional lenses that snap on with seconds.

     When it comes to communication the bar as been set to almost instant contact so what improvements can be made? I'm not sure how much better than instant you can get but the experience and accompanying features can always be improved. If we look into video chat or phone calls the only real complaint seems to be quality. With the current progression it's only natural that it will continue to improve over time with OLED and 4k technology becoming prominent. I think in addition to fast communication the devices we carry should be multi-use like I mentioned above. That versatility is where the real advancements will come into play. While things like speed and efficiency can be capped at a certain level the experience and uses can still evolve.

        I'm about as tech savvy as normal people my age, I still have ideas I think would be helpful to implement in smartphones. If the technology for holographs becomes more substantial that would be like something out of one of my childhood dreams. Having a phone that could potentially cast three dimensional images could have a multitude of practical uses as well as a major factor in entertainment value. While the tech emulate images like this exists it usually requires an extra medium to function like fog or specifically angled pieces of glass in the instance of the famous "Tupac Hologram". Something like a dark room is one of the only instances of a medium that would seem marketable. But with the proper technology image the possibilities. Being able to play card games like the popular series Yu-G-Oh! in 3D much like in the hit television show. This is something I used to think about frequently when I was younger. Being able to project furniture into a room to see how much space it would take up or making holographic measuring tapes would be extremely useful. 

    AR (artificial reality) is a more realistic iteration of this technology that we already use. I feel like advancements in this field are going to come in rapid waves. We can already do some of the above things with AR but it is limited to using the cellphone as a window into other worlds. I think the logical step would be body augments that make use of AR. Elon Musk and his companies are already hard at work creating a chip that can be implanted into the brain of living things to interact with technology. Recently there was a video of a monkey playing "Mindpong" with one of these chips implanted in it's head. I think that it is just a natural progression in human evolution to integrate interfaces like this as well as AR lenses to create a merged digital and physical world. Shows like Black Mirror and Altered Carbon have given a peek into what are futures could be like in terms of technology and communication. Some people are worried about the ramifications of some of this tech and the havoc it could bring, this is a fair concern. At the end of the day this fear won't halt the advance of technology.

    

    In conclusion the advances I'm predicting are likely many years away but the concepts and development have already started even today. The basis for many of these technologies exist already. Communication has constantly been evolving since humans appeared, our bodies have reached their limits for this so we must go beyond with the help of technology. we're already doing on a basic level with our smartphones but the true possibilities are seemingly endless.